Dying Candle, Nibhna Lageko Diyo, an introduction

A friend in Twitter asked if I had heard of the movie ‘Dyning Candle’ or ‘Nibhna Lageko Diyo’ in Nepali language. I hadn’t. But, I did a quick search and loved the trailer available in IMDB website (trailer is embedded at the end). The movie set in a remote location seems to be the story of a loving sister and her varied emotions towards her brother and others. I am writing about all the stuffs I could gather from the trailer and the information available online. There is no definitive release date of the movie as the post production and re-shooting seem to be going on.

The movie ‘Dying Candle’ is written and directed by Naresh Kumar KC. The original screenplay was 145 pages at the time of the start shooting. But, first 88 pages completed the movie although the ending was an unplanned one. The crew lived in the remote village for 45 days to complete the shooting. Every food item except potato had to be imported from Kathmandu. So the crew had mostly to live on potato throughout the shooting.

Apart from other hardships, the climate wasn’t cooperative for the shooting. They had to wait for four days for the proper sunlight to shoot the opening sequence if the brother and sister. In the scene, when the brother talks about his father the idea was to let sunray enter in the house through the roof. Sun-ray through and the rain dripping inside was a part of poverty the characters live in the remote village.

The movie is the story of 24-years-old Kshemi (Sirjana Bubba) living with her sick mother and her 9-years-old brother Tikpe (Lakpa Singi Tamang) in remote Nepal. Kshemi runs a small liquor shop for living. Both of Kshemi’s younger sisters are married and one of the youngest sister is living with her uncle as she can’t afford the cost of living all by herself. Kshemi fights all odds to take care of her young brother. But, things didn’t go as expected and things start to fall apart. Kshemi has to sell her dignity to save her brother.

Lakpa Singhi Tamang was a very nervous kid during the audition and wasn’t ready to face camera. He was brought to Kathmandu and trained in Theater Village for three months before the shooting. After that, he excelled in memorizing the script and acting.

The movie is produced jointly by Mother Productions, National Media and Uttam Films.

The information shared by the film production team:

The scene between Arpan Thapa and Srijana Subba was improvised a night before the shoot. That was after the realization of the director that their love story was being shadowed by that of Saugat and Srijana. The shooting at the school took the whole whole day as the students at the school weren’t able to sing the old national anthem of Nepal.

Because of load shedding during the shooting and the inability of the production to purchase petrol in the remote location, some of the scenes had to shot in low light. The nearest commercial center, Trishuli Bazar, is located at almost two days’ up and down travel distance from the shooting location. The production went bankrupt towards the end of shooting and they had to shot in minimal light to avoid generators. The original plan to use an octocopter at the waterfall was also shelved because of the hardship in cash.